Victims of Circumstance
by mossley
Summary: Chapt 4 reloaded to fix format problems. Completed. Quarantined in the clinic, House and his team try to find out what's wrong with a comatose young woman.
1. Chapter 1

**Victims of Circumstance  
****Summary: **Quarantined in the clinic, House and his team try to find out what's wrong with a comatose young woman.  
**A/N: **Thanks to Niff and Marlou for reading over this for me.  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Disclaimer**: I have nothing to do with the show, and I am not a doctor. Don't trust my medical information to be completely accurate.

* * *

**Chapter 1 **

Leaning on the clinic's reception desk, Dr. Allison Cameron concentrated on the folder in front of her. She dutifully filled in patient information while filtering out the crying and screaming coming from the waiting room. While she was sympathetic, the constant interruptions from nervous parents threatened her patience.

The clinic was busy, even by its normal standards. A virus had swept into town, affecting primarily the very young and the elderly. The disease wasn't particularly serious, but it made the children miserable. Parents desperate for help filed into the clinic all day, joining the normal clients and an influx of students returning for the fall semester.

She'd been working non-stop, even skipping lunch, to help with the backlog. Technically, she was off-duty, and she was more than ready to leave the chaotic atmosphere of the clinic. But her conscience wouldn't let her leave until her replacement showed up.

Unfortunately, her replacement was none other than her supervisor.

Absentmindedly, she frowned as her thoughts drifted towards the misanthropic Dr. Gregory House. There was no questioning his medical brilliance, but everything else about him was fair game. His avoidance of patients was legendary, and it struck her as odd that such a gifted doctor didn't want to treat people.

Even odder were her feelings for House. Since his blunt rejection, she'd been re-evaluating what attracted her to him. She'd originally thought it was because he always did the right thing, but he was trying to revive his relationship with Stacy while at the same time treating her husband. That was wrong, even using House's typical ethically-challenged guidelines.

He didn't want to get involved with her. He wasn't a nice man. He was violating every medical oath by chasing a patient's wife. So what did her continued interest in him say about herself?

Cameron recognized the irate tapping of Dr. Lisa Cuddy's heels as she bore down on her. "I don't know where he is," she snapped preemptively. "Trust me, if I did, I'd have dragged him down here myself."

Cuddy stopped short and stared disbelievingly. The curt response from the normally abnormally nice doctor convinced her that Cameron wasn't covering for House. After a double take, she threw her arms up and turned to the nurse. "Has anyone checked the exam rooms?"

"Twice, ma'am. He's not hiding in there."

"Why do I put up with him?" Cuddy muttered rhetorically as she headed back down the hallway. She was partway to the elevator when she spotted someone lamely dashing behind a potted plant out of the corner of her eye. "Dr. House!"

Coming out from his hiding spot, he headed directly towards the doors. When Cuddy quickly overtook him, he smiled at her. "What say? Bloody good weather for an afternoon constitutional, don't you agree? Sorry I can't stay. Carry on! Tally-ho!" he said in an exaggerated British accent.

"You aren't going anywhere," she replied, grabbing his arm and nearly jerking him off-balance as she spun him around. "The clinic is packed."

"So?"

"You're a doctor. Those are patients. Do I need to draw you a picture?"

"Ooh! With lots of pretty colors? And lots of exposed skin? Not yours – someone hotter. Carmen Electra is always a good choice. Better yet, just download something from the Internet. I hear they have all kinds of interesting web sites."

"I'm sure you know all about them," Cuddy said with a smile.

"Those credit card bills don't prove a thing," he said as he tried to leave. "Uh, you can let go of my arm now. People will start to talk if you're groping me in public. Then all the other doctors and nurses will want to grope me. I'll never get any work done."

"What work do you get done now? The hospital runs this clinic as part of its operation. As a doctor here, you are required to work in the clinic. You don't like it? Too bad! We all do things we don't like. Keeping you on staff, for example."

"Don't hold back on my account. Let me know what you really think."

"Every organization has its own rules. It's a necessity to make sure things run the way they're supposed to."

"Okay, let me rephrase this," House said shortly. "So, what do you want me to do? It's a virus. It's not even a bad virus. The kids have a headache, and their little, bitty throats hurt, and they feel like shit in general. They can't tell anyone they feel that way, so they cry. That makes the mommies and daddies worried. They bring them here."

"Your compassion is amazing."

"Compassion has nothing to do with it. All they need are some cold drinks and bed rest, but the parents are going to want drugs for their precious tykes. Doesn't matter that antibiotics don't treat viruses, and it's not safe to give them drugs that aren't doing anything. People can't accept that sometimes there's just nothing you can do but let the body fight the disease off on its own. Why should I waste my time arguing with the parents?"

"Guess what? Not all the patients have the virus," Cuddy said, grabbing a separate stack of files from the reception desk. Taking the first one, she nodded her head. "Diabetic with irregular blood sugar levels."

House snatched the folder from her. "He's twelve. He's cheating on his diet, and not telling Mom that he's eating junk food."

Cuddy rolled her eyes, but took the next folder from the stack. "Patient complaining of upper back pain."

"He's pulled a muscle."

"Forty-three-year-old man complaining of arm pain."

"Muscle again. People actually have them all over their bodies. See, this is what happens when you buy the answers to your med school exams. You forget the simple stuff. Or did you ever learn it in the first place?"

Glaring at him, she handed over another folder. "Fine. Patient complaining of exhaustion, coughing and painful urination."

House took it and shook his head. "Who's been in repeatedly this month, always with vague complaints. All the tests came back clear," he said, looking away pensively. "We had a name for someone like that when I was in med school. Oh, yeah. A hypochondriac."

"If you don't want to see these patients, you can treat the sick kids then."

House pulled away and started again for the doors. "Why don't you call me when something interesting shows up?"

He'd only gone a few steps when a terrified scream came from the clinic. Hearing the sounds of chairs knocking over, he gazed upward with a long-suffering look. "I set myself up for that one."

Turning around, he made a disagreeable noise deep in his throat. Patients milled around, some trying to get away from a row of chairs while others tried to get closer to see what happened. Together, they effectively blocked his view. He managed to catch sight of Cameron dashing to the center of the commotion and dropping to the ground. She called out for a gurney, and a group of nurses and Dr. Chase raced to join her.

Deciding they had it under control, he started to resume his trek towards the exit when Cameron called to him. There was a note of urgency in her voice, but his first thought was that she treated everything as worthy of his attention. Frowning, he admitted to himself that she was a highly professional doctor; if she yelled at him across a packed waiting room, there probably was a good reason.

Or there better be. He needed to grab a sandwich and stop by the pharmacy before his soaps started.

With a resigned sigh, he turned around in time to see Cuddy frantically dashing to a phone and security guards locking the doors. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. Quarantine? Now they had his attention.

Forcing his way into the crowd, he used his height to his advantage. Looking over assorted heads, he saw a young woman lying unmoving on the floor with Cameron examining her. From the woman's position, he assumed she'd passed out while sitting and slid to the floor.

What caught his attention was her neck, specifically a large swollen area on the right side. He estimated it was at least four inches across, an interesting symptom in itself, but not nearly as impressive as the steady stream of yellowish-green pus oozing from it. He could smell the foul stench from across the room. Occasionally, the swelling sputtered, sending a glob of pus flying to the floor or the woman's arm, and drawing another round of screams from frightened children and mothers.

He heard Chase state she was burning up and ordered an ice bath. Cameron pushed her knuckles painfully into the woman's chest, but there was no response.

"Coma," he said softly as he added the symptom to his mental checklist. Trying to force his way through the crowd, he scowled. The other patients packed together tightly, slowing his progress. "Get out of my way! Doctor coming through. I have a cane, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

He'd made it most of the way through the throng when a surly boy in his late teens ducked in front of him. Pushing his thick glasses up, he pointed at the girl and let out a frightened yell. "Her neck! She has the plague!"

"This isn't medieval Europe," House hollered. The nervous crowd was loud, and he could tell they were on the verge of panic. The girl probably had an infectious disease, and it was possible that it was contagious. It might even be the plague, but the last thing he needed was this snotty brat starting a stampede. If it was contagious, they needed to limit the spread, and they couldn't do that if the patients fled. "No one gets the plague any more."

"That's not true," the boy said, turning around defensively. He saw the guards at the doors and pointed. "Look! They're locking us in. We can't leave – that's means we're infected. We're gonna die!"

The boy bolted towards the door, kicking out House's cane from under him. Trying to regain his balance, he watched in horror as some of the parents picked up their small children and herded after the troublemaker. Their panic ignited others, and soon a third of the people in the waiting area crushed towards the exits, dragging House in their midst.

Yelping painfully, he wished he'd refilled his Vicodin earlier in the day.

* * *

"Take it easy," Dr. James Wilson said softly.

"Take it easy? Did you see what they did?" House snapped, slapping his friend's hand away from his head. Shifting uncomfortably on the exam table, he lifted his hands up. "It's hopeless. It's beyond repair."

"You can get a new TV set. I'm worried about your skull."

"It's fine. I'm the thickheaded one. At least that's what you're always telling me that. If I can't trust my _friend_ who can I trust?"

"In your case, probably no one. Maybe you should think about that some time."

"Why? It's depressing." House screwed up his face, and looked morosely at the portable television in his hands. "My soap starts in an hour. What am I supposed to do? There aren't any TVs down here."

"I don't know. Maybe you could try something doctor-like and try treating some patients," Cuddy said as she entered the exam room. "How is he?"

_"He_ is fine. _He_ is pissed. _He_ is in the room and able to hear," House said acerbically. "What he needs is for the pharmacy to send me down a refill of my pills. Send him down? Weird referring to yourself in second person."

"No."

House turned to her with an incredulous expression. "No? You picked a fine time to play 'let's see if he's an addict' again. I have one pill left, and my leg hurts. The water buffaloes out there jerked it all over the place."

"I am sorry," Cuddy said honestly. "But the clinic is under quarantine. No one comes in or out of here. I'm not risking an exposure for you to get your pills. We'll do what we can to manage your pain if it gets too bad."

"I need them."

"No, you think you need them. Besides, you got caught in that mob because you were trying to get out of clinic duty. And if you were doing your clinic duty, maybe we would have gotten that young woman into a room before the panic started."

"Oh, this is my fault?" House asked indignantly.

Cuddy nodded. "You nearly getting trampled? I'd say so."

Wilson shook his head as he leaned against a desk. "Oh, this is going to be a fun quarantine."

They all turned when the door opened again, this time revealing Dr. Eric Foreman. "Security has the crowd rounded up. No one was hurt. Well, except for a potted tree. It's toast. Some scrapes, a few bruises, but nothing serious."

"And I'm fine. Thanks for asking. I'm so touched," House said sweetly.

"Hey, if you were hurt the entire hospital would know by now. You're not exactly quiet."

"And people think my bedside manner needs work. Ah, the prodigal son returns with the not-so-prodigal daughter."

Cameron and Chase ignored the comment and entered the room. "She's in a coma," Chase began without preamble. "Her fever topped at one oh five point six. We have her in an ice bath to bring it down, and we've started her on broad spectrum antibiotics."

"The lymph node in her neck isn't the only one swollen; it extends to several nodes on her upper right side. I did a complete examination of her. There're no cuts, lesions, abscesses or other visible signs of an infected wound that would explain the lymphadenopathy."

"Do we know anything about her?" Wilson asked.

"Her name is Jen Hopper, age twenty from Ames, Iowa. She's a student at the university. Her student id and driver's license were in her pocket," Cameron said.

"School just started. There's a good chance she caught whatever she has before she left home," House noted as he searched through drawers in the exam room.

"I have a nurse calling the registrar to get her parents' phone number."

"And I already informed the state health department and the Centers for Disease Control that we might have an exposure incident," Cuddy said.

"Yeah, well before we freak out the herd out there with the guys in the space suits, let's see if we can figure this out ourselves. Diagnostics and all of that." House taped several sheets of paper to the wall. With a marker, he wrote 'fever', 'regional lymphadenopathy' and 'coma' on the top piece. "Not much to work with."

"Too bad no one did a patient workup before she slipped into a coma," Cuddy said sharply, causing House to roll his eyes.

"With a fever that high, the coma could be a side effect, not a symptom," Foreman pointed out.

House thought about it for a moment before writing a question mark next to 'coma'. "Or she has meningitis or encephalitis."

"With suppurating lymph nodes?" Foreman asked.

"Depends on the underlying cause," Cameron said.

House turned towards her. "College student - did she have a book bag?"

"There was one on the floor. I guess it was hers."

"Go grab it. If there's any over-the-counter medications in there, it might give us a clue what's going on," he said, turning back to his notes with a grunt. "I hate to say it but that twerp out there might be right. Her symptoms match the plague."

"But the bubonic plague in Iowa? That doesn't seem very likely," Chase said.

"He's right. In the US, it's basically limited to the Southwest," Wilson added. "How does a kid from Iowa get around fleas from wild desert rodents?"

"For all we know, she spent the summer vacationing in Arizona," Cuddy said. "Those patient histories really are useful."

House let out a huff of breath and turned to her. "Yes, Torquemada. I know. I'm a bad doctor! Bad! But before you break out the newspaper and swat my nose, could we maybe help the patient?"

Cuddy was holding out her hands when Cameron entered the room with the book bag. She paused, cocking her head in confusion when she saw the makeshift white board. "You think she has the plague?"

"We've already had this discussion. We don't know where she was this summer," he answered irritably, but her hurt expression surprised him. It was the type of look that made him want to apologize to her, and that left him confused. He wasn't the type of person who apologized.

"That's not what I meant. Her lymph nodes are swollen, but they're soft. If she had the plague, they'd be hard."

"Not if it's in the later stages. They fluctuate then. And if that's the case, it's also probably too late to save her. Anything in there?"

"A bottle of ibuprofen. She's taken a lot of them, but swollen lymph nodes are painful. That doesn't really help much," she said as she sorted through the items.

Foreman took a seat on the examination table, crossing his arms thoughtfully as he did so. "Septicemic plague is the most likely to cause meningitis, and it doesn't have the swollen nodes."

"Unless the fever caused the coma, and she has another form of the plague," Chase reminded him. "Swollen nodes would fit with either bubonic or pneumonic presentations of the plague."

"Assuming it is the plague, it takes days to do a culture, and we aren't even set up to do it," Wilson said. "We can't keep that crowd quarantined for that long."

"No, but we can run the hemagglutination assay," House told him. "If she's been exposed, she'll have the antigens."

"That could be a problem."

The other doctors turned to Cameron, who held out a folded up piece of paper. "From her class schedule, I'm guessing she's a zoology major. Depending on what animals she works with, she could be vaccinated against the plague. An assay will test positive whether she has it or not."

House leaned against the wall, rubbing his leg with a wince. "And no one really knows how effective the vaccine is against the plague, so even if she had a vaccination, she could still have the disease."

"I think we're jumping the gun here," Foreman said. "It could be the plague, but I say tuberculosis is a more likely diagnosis. It fits the symptoms, and it is more common."

"I agree," House replied as he added it to the list. "The PPD skin test takes days to cause a reaction. She may not have that much time; start her on INH, rifampin, pyrazinamide, and streptomycin in the meantime. And if she has the plague, streptomycin is the drug of choice for that."

"Do you think that's safe? We don't have enough information to make a diagnosis," Cuddy said.

"She's already in a coma. If we don't treat her soon, she'll be dead before we get the lab results back."

"The medications can cause serious complications. TB would have pulmonary symptoms. At the very least, we need a chest X-ray. And where do you think you are going?"

He paused at the door and pointed his cane towards the waiting area. "You're right, Dr. Cuddy. We don't have enough information. But there's an entire room of people out there who were sitting near her."

The others followed him quickly, half-afraid of how the anxious patients would react to the caustic doctor. He didn't allay their fears when he started by letting out a loud whistle. People gathered around him, shouting out questions until he slammed his cane loudly on the desk.

"Just keep quiet for a minute, will you!"

The crowd started to calm down – except for the crying small children – until the surly teenager with the thick glasses forced his way to the front. "We're going to die, aren't we?"

"You? Of course you are."

"What?"

House gasped, covering his mouth dramatically. "Ponce De Leon! I didn't recognize you. You look _so_ young. Been hitting the water a bit too much, haven't you? You and Dick Clark – never know when to say enough is enough."

A snickering started in the back of the room, and House saw a lone woman standing far apart from everyone else trying to cover her laugh.

"What?" the boy repeated when others gradually joined in.

"He's telling you that everyone is going to die," a man in an expensive suit answered. "But since we are quarantined, I'm assuming the girl has a contagious disease."

"That's what we're trying to figure out."

"Are we going to be here long? I'm due in court in two hours."

"I'd let the judge know you're not going to make it."

"Just how long are we going to be here?" asked an older man.

"Trust me, I'm going to get the lot of you out of here as fast as I can," House said forcefully. "The young woman probably has an infectious disease. We're running tests to find out what."

"She has the plague," the boy interrupted. "We're going to die. That's why they won't let us out. They don't want to start an epidemic. It'll kill everyone. That's what it did in Europe."

House hobbled to the boy, draping an arm over his shoulder. "Don't listen to my esteemed colleague here; Doogie Howser is wrong in this case."

"Who?" he asked scowling angrily at House.

"Okay, not so esteemed. And he's still wrong. If she turns out to have something contagious, we'll give you the appropriate medicine. You'll be fine."

"You're just saying that so we'll be sheep and stay here."

House glared at the boy. "Where did you go to medical school?"

"Me? I'm not a doctor."

"Then shut up before I suture your mouth closed," House stated lowly.

The teen pulled away. "You can't say that to me. Did you hear what he said to me? I'll sue you if you try it!"

"And I'll represent you – pro bono," the lawyer said, pulling out a card and surprising the boy by handing it to House. "Does the girl have the plague?"

"Like we said, that's what we're trying to figure out. Don't panic," he snapped when the crowd began to fret. "Yes, it could be the plague, but that's not likely. Even if it is, it's not that contagious, and it's easily treated."

"Yeah, if that's true, why did it wipe out so many people?"

"Because they didn't have antibiotics back then."

"Right," the teen muttered.

House grunted impatiently. "Listen, _kid_, a lot of stuff you take for granted hasn't been around that long. MP3 players, cell phones, video games, quilted toilet paper, acne cream – well, scratch the last one from your list. But antibiotics have only been around for sixty years."

"You're not a very nice person," a younger woman with two small children said.

"No, I'm not. And I really don't like him," House answered, pointing to the cowering teen. "Noticed the cane? I have that because my leg is bad. The little mob scene he started earlier didn't help it. And I don't have my pain medicine. Now, that sick woman was sitting in a waiting room full of you people. Who saw her?"

People mumbled to themselves, but no one answered. "I don't believe it. You sat in here forever like sardines. At least one of you is a busybody. Who is it? If you think I'm not nice now, just wait until later when my blood sugar drops. I didn't eat lunch, and I get _really_ cranky when I'm hungry."

An elderly woman moved forward slowly on her walker, and House smiled at her. "Good. You saw her."

"Oh, no, dearie. I was signing in when the excitement started," she answered, fumbling with her purse.

"And you are talking to me because?"

"Here," she said, handing him a candy bar. "That'll make you feel better, honey."

House blinked and took it with a long sigh. "Thanks."

"And here. These will make you regular. That'll really fix your mood," she said, pushing a box of laxatives into his hand before slowly leaving.

Ignoring the subdued laughter coming from his team, House rubbed his forehead. "Look, the sooner someone answers my questions, the sooner we'll get out of here. We need to know if she was coughing, sneezing, anything. Someone had to be sitting next to her. Who was it?"

"We were," a frazzled man said, holding a crying infant in one arm while trying to keep two older children under control. "I'm sorry. The baby was sick, and Charlie kept crying. I didn't pay any attention to her. Lucy was sitting right next to her, though."

House looked down to the five-year-old girl huddling around her father's legs. Bending over, he tried a friendly smile, but that only prompted her to hide from him. "Okay, Lucy, did you see the sleeping lady on the floor? Good. Was she sleeping when you first got here?"

"Uh, uh."

"Did she cough any?"

"Uh, huh."

"Was it a productive cough or a dry cough?"

The girl blinked at him incomprehensively, and he closed his eyes. Why was he doing this? Cameron would have gotten every patient's perspective of what happened by now. Because his leg ached, and he only had one Vicodin left. Nothing in the clinic came close to that strength, and if he didn't concentrate on something, the pain would overwhelm him. He'd tried going cold turkey once, and that was an experience he never wanted to repeat.

"Okay," he said with a forced calm. The day he couldn't out-reason a child was the day he gave up medicine. "Why don't you cough for me like the sleeping lady did? Come on, I bet a big girl like you can do it. I'll see if I can find you a lollipop if you cough like the lady did."

Lucy opened her mouth, but instead of a cough, she vomited on House's shoes. That caused the other patients to pull away, some nervously picking up their children and leaving the area. Crying, she buried her head into her father's legs, and he tried to free an arm to wrap around her.

"She had an upset stomach. All the kids do. That's why I brought them here," he said apologetically.

"That's fine," House said, heading towards the reception desk, kicking his shoes before he turned back to the crowd. "Anyone else? Did anyone else see her coughing?"

When no one else answered, the doctors headed back to the examination room. Sitting on a stool, House pulled off his socks and tossed them in the biohazard waste container. "Great. We have the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Club out there. She could have been clearing her throat or coughing up her lungs, and no one noticed."

"We'll have to keep TB as a possibility," Cuddy admitted.

"Ya think? What else?"

Chase answered first. "Glandular tularemia."

"Rabbit fever?" Cameron responded, shaking her head. "You know that's a rare disease to begin with, but that form is even rarer."

"But it does match the symptoms, including the spontaneously draining nodes," he countered. "And she works around animals."

House gave a condescending headshake, but added it to the list.

"What about lymphocytic choriomeningitis?" Wilson suggested, and House gave him a questioning look. "Hey, she could work with rodents at the school."

"Research on killer gerbils? Homicidal hamsters? Spooky."

"Hey," Wilson said defensively. "Have you ever been bitten by a gerbil? It hurts. They're just overgrown, furry rats."

"There's no bradycardia," Cameron said. "We should test for HIV. If she has AIDS, almost any infection could cause this severe of a reaction."

House nodded and added it. "Or it could just be a bad case of non-tuberculosis mycobacterial infection. Come on people. You're missing an obvious one."

"Rickettsial disease," Foreman said. "This part of the world, it'll most likely be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever."

Cameron shook her head. "There's no spotting on the skin."

House wrote it on the list anyway. "Twenty percent of cases are spotless spotted fever. Which is a really dumb name for a disease. Who comes up with these things?"

"What about murine?" Foreman asked.

"There would be a rash with that. And I'm disappointed in you. Attractive twenty-year-old college student; sexually active – I guarantee it," House said, adding syphilis to the bottom of the list.

"She doesn't have any lesions," Cameron noted.

"They don't show up in advance stages of the disease. Which would be when the patient does something like slip into a coma."

"But that takes years to develop."

House gave her an impatient look. "You really have trouble with the fact that some people do have sex when they're kids, but that isn't a reason to rule it out."

"No, she's right. It can't be syphilis. Syphilitic meningitis is afebrile. That girl is burning up," Foreman injected.

"Now that's a reason I can believe. But I don't. Test for it anyway – it's not always feverless. Run the CBC, urinalysis and liver functions. Run titers for the rabbit fever. And get Cuddy's chest X-ray. Foreman, do a lumbar puncture. If it's meningitis or encephalitis, that should tell us."

"Should we start the other patients on streptomycin as a precaution?" Chase asked.

"There's no reason to do that yet," Foreman said. "Besides, did you see how many little kids are out there? Streptomycin is too dangerous for them. At least one of them would go deaf or need a kidney transplant if we started them on a preventative dosage."

"What if she has pneumonic plague?" Chase pressed. "The symptoms of the plague can show in less than a day after exposure, and if treatment isn't started immediately, that form is almost always lethal. If we wait for the CDC to culture it, those children could be dead by the time the results get back."

An uneasy silence fell over the room until Wilson let out a whistle. "What do we do? Ask the parents if they want to take a chance like that? And how do we do it without causing another panic?"

"It's too rare to take that type of risk," Foreman said. "The odds are it's not even a contagious disease."

"The last major outbreak of pneumonic plague in the US was eighty years ago in Los Angeles. Only two people who were infected survived," House said. "It's rare, but it's lethal. Antibiotics don't always help. Cameron, are any of the other nodes swollen enough to aspirate?"

"Yes."

"We need a sample now, before the antibiotics start to work. Get it sent to the lab for staining. It's a priority. The yersinia bacteria are bipolar shaped. If nothing like that shows up on the stain, we can rule the plague out. If it is bipolar, it doesn't prove it's the plague, but it's a starting point. We'll worry about what to do with the kids then."

"We're going to need samples to send to the CDC as well," Cuddy said. "I'm having the hallway outside the door by the elevators set up as a staging area. Leave the samples in the hallway, and someone in a biohazard suit will come in later to pick them up. Follow quarantine procedures."

"We should run the PPD test on everyone out there," Chase said. "If it is TB, we can send them home with instructions to return in a few days to check to see if they had a reaction."

"Do the tests while examining the patients. Let's try to keep everything low-key. That mob lost it once; they could panic again," House said, heading into the clinic area.

Cameron followed him to the reception desk where he rifled through the folders impatiently. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"No. My TV is broken, my soap starts soon, and I'm stuck in here with all of you. Does that sound okay?"

"That's not what I meant," she said kindly. "Did you hurt your leg?"

"It hurts all the time. That's why I pop pills."

"And you're out of Vicodin."

"No, I have one pill left, and I'm trying to save it for later. That means I'm avoiding aggravation," he said pointedly. Finding the folder he wanted, he called the name out and handed it to Cameron. "Isolate him, and keep a close eye on him."

"Why?"

"If we're dealing with an contagious disease, then I want to know exactly what other symptoms show up before the patient falls into a coma. Things like that tend to help me figure out what's wrong with the patient."

"The little girl and her family were closer."

"Yeah, but they already have gastrointestinal symptoms. If that's part of it, we can't tell from them. And the boy has juvenile diabetes. He's more prone to disease. If we do have a contagion, he's the first one that's going to break with it," House said, watching sadly as the curly-haired boy and his mother approached. "He's our canary in the mine."

_TBC _


	2. Chapter 2

**Victims of Circumstance  
Summary: **Quarantined in the clinic,House and his team try to find out what's wrong with a comatose young woman.  
**A/N: **Thanks to Niff and Marlou for looking this over. All mistakes are mine. I don't share.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** I have nothing to do with the show, and I am not a doctor. Don't trust my medical information to be completely accurate.

**Chapter 2 **

Cameron watched her supervisor hobble off to the bathroom, frowning as he disappeared from view. Despite his attitude, she knew he was in more pain than normal, and it was only a matter of time before he took his last pill. That would provide a temporary solution, but once it wore off, he'd be on the first step of withdrawal.

The entire staff knew from experience what that meant, and it concerned her. He was an addict. Addicts went to extraordinary lengths to get their fixes. Once, he had gone without his Vicodin voluntarily, but that wasn't under the stress of a quarantine situation. Patients got on his nerves, and he was stuck in here with them. If he broke quarantine to get to the pharmacy, there'd be hell to pay. Even his medical reputation wouldn't help him.

Worse, she had no idea how to help him. Even if he had a personality transplant, and admitted he needed assistance, there was his pain. Patients in chronic pain often became addicts; it was a medical fact. Their need became psychological over time, but the underlying physical pain still existed.

As the young diabetic and his mother approached, Cameron pushed down those thoughts. She had patients who she could help. With any luck, they'd figure out what was wrong with Jen Hopper and be out of quarantine before House entered withdrawal.

She smiled as she escorted Ms. Richards and her son into the exam room. She quickly skimmed his chart while he settled on the exam table, and his mother tried to hover without being too obvious. The mother's nervousness was as clear as the realization that her son was old enough to want some privacy, and the domestic scene touched the doctor.

"How are you feeling today, Adam?"

"A little thirsty. Do you think you could find me something to drink, Mom?"

His mother tilted her head in surprise. After a beat, she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I don't know. It may take me a bit. Say as long as this exam takes. Do you think you can handle me not hanging over your shoulder that long?"

Behind the cover of the chart, Cameron smiled tenderly as Adam dropped his head with an embarrassed grin. "Thanks, Mom."

"Next time just ask. You know the doctor would consider thirst a symptom."

"Right, Mom. Bye!" Adam said, lifting his hand in a parting wave. Once his mother was gone, he turned to Cameron, but didn't return her smile. "So, am I going to die?"

The directness of the question startled her, but she quickly recovered. His chart explained his attitude; his doctors diagnosed him at an early age, but it took time to get his diabetes under control. He'd been seriously ill several times. That gave him a legitimate reason to be scared, but she didn't want to upset him. "Why would you ask something like that?" she asked calmly.

"I have juvenile diabetes. I know what that means."

"It means we need to find out why your blood sugar levels are off."

Adam let out an impatient sigh. "I learned to inject myself before my friends knew how to skateboard. Every night before I go to bed, I check my feet for infection. School knows when a bug is going to break out 'cause I get sick before anyone else," he said. His matter-of-fact tone didn't completely disguise his concern. "The last time I got sick it nearly killed me. I'm not dumb"

"I know you're not," Cameron said softly, trying to reassure her charge. "But you shouldn't listen to that kid out there. He's panicky, and he's making everyone else that way."

"You know, that's how I knew I was really sick. Mom and Dad – anytime I had a question, they'd answer it. Then they started taking me to all these doctors, and they told me I had diabetes. My folks stopped answering my questions until they found out I was looking stuff up on my own. I like it when my doctors are honest."

Cameron sat down on the stool and rested her hand on his arm. She couldn't tell him they were watching him like House's 'canary in a mine'; it was cruel. But he understood his condition, as well as someone his age could. He knew he was at risk.

"You're right. The diabetes means you're more likely to catch infections. But we don't know if what that woman has is even contagious yet. I don't want you to worry about it. We're taking care of her, and I'm going to take care of you," she directed him.

"So why are we locked up in here?"

"It's a precaution. There are one or two things that are contagious that have the same symptoms she has. Until we rule those out, we're keeping everyone here. Even if it is something that you can catch, we can treat it."

"Okay."

Cameron shot him a quick grin as she moved to a cabinet. "Good. Now, it's not likely that you caught something from her, but there're a lot of people with viruses out there. Those you _can_ catch. It's not serious, but it feels terrible. I'm going to keep you in here, and see if we can prevent you from getting that bug. Sound like a plan?"

"Sure."

"All right then. I'm going to have a nurse take some blood, and I'm going to need a urine sample from you. You know the drill. Once you're finished with that, we'll check you out, and see why your blood sugar level was off."

Adam took the sample cup she handed him and watched her with an intensity unnerving for someone his age. There was a calm acceptance in his eyes that bothered her. "I'll let you know if I start feeling sick. You know. If I start coughing or getting sick to my stomach. So you'll know if I caught whatever that lady has."

Shocked, Cameron nodded and hurriedly exited the room. Once outside, she closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. He was too mature for a kid; he'd already lived a rough life. She'd yet to develop the detachment necessary to handle terminally ill patients. Pushing away from the door, she hoped he wouldn't provide her with any practice.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Dr. Cuddy asked incredulously. 

House shot her an annoyed glance over the top of his Game Boy. "Trying to save the world. That's kind of a big thing. Maybe you should go bother someone else."

"I don't believe you," she snapped, grabbing the toy from his hands angrily.

"You're responsible for anyone crushed by that asteroid."

"We have patients. We're quarantined."

"That about sums it up. Except you forgot one thing. And I'm bored. Give me back my game."

"I thought you were the expert in infectious diseases. Why the hell aren't you doing anything?"

"Well, I was trying to stop that asteroid from crashing …"

"This isn't funny."

House straightened up in his chair behind the nurse's station, making a half-hearted attempt to take his Game Boy back. "No, this isn't funny. But I'm waiting for test results. The others are looking after the girl. There's nothing else I can do."

"Yes, there is. You're going to treat some of the other patients."

Raw pain shot through his leg, and he concentrated on keeping it under control. That took effort, and it wasn't fun. Add on the aggravation of having to deal with patients, and it was a guarantee that he'd be popping his last pill quickly.

House didn't say that, though. Cuddy would say that it meant that he was taking the Vicodin for something other than the pain. And that wasn't true. He needed his pills. For his pain. Just his physical pain.

He shrugged. "No can do. I don't have any shoes. Or socks. I'm pretty sure that's not sanitary. If I can't go into a McDonalds that way, I don't think I can treat patients. Please tell me your hospital has higher health standards than a fast food poisoning factory."

Cuddy pulled a pair of slip-on surgical booties from her pocket and tossed them at him. "Given the circumstances, I think those will do just fine."

"I don't," House groused, looking at the pinkish booties in disgust.

"Fine," she answered, a slow smile forming as she held up his Game Boy. "Do you want to see how long it takes me to get this into more pieces than your TV?"

"That's blackmail."

"I consider it motivational speaking."

House started to answer, but a loud swearing from the other side of the desk caught his attention. Standing up painfully, he stared disbelievingly at Cameron as she slammed the phone down on the receiver. When she noticed the questioning looks directed her way, she pushed a stray lock behind her ear and took a deep breath.

"That was the registrar at the university. I told them I needed to talk to Jen's parents. They won't give me the phone number. Instead, they called the Hoppers, and they're now on their way to the airport."

"What's the school's number?" Cuddy asked, quickly calling.

"We need to talk to them," Cameron muttered as she stepped to the side.

"You may want to work on your understatements. That one was fairly lame," House said, making a face at the scowl she directed his way.

"Is this all a joke to you?"

"Do I look like I'm laughing? No TV, no video games, no lunch, no Vicodin. Nothing in that list sounds like fun to me. Oh, and I'm stuck in here. You can't tell me you wouldn't rather be somewhere else."

"No, and I would have been, except for you," Cameron admitted shortly.

"Me? What did I do?"

She looked away for a moment, but instead of backing off, she crossed her arms defiantly over her midsection. "You didn't show up for your clinic duty. I stayed here to cover for you."

"How very noble, but that's your fault. No one made you do that. I certainly didn't ask you to."

"Sorry, I actually care about the patients and my responsibilities. If you had showed up, I wouldn't even be here."

House actually grinned broadly as he shook his finger at her. "I see where you're going with this. If it turns out this kid has an infectious disease, you'd have been a vector that spread it throughout the city. You'd have infected all those poor, unsuspecting people. Thanks to me, you didn't. You're welcome."

Cuddy's swearing drowned out Cameron's retort. After slamming the phone down, she turned angrily. "They won't give me the phone number! I told them we're in the middle of a damned medical emergency, we need to know what Jen did before coming to school, and they won't give me the phone number. They have 'rules' about privacy."

"That's too bad," House said, giving her a pointed look.

"Too bad?" she repeated coolly.

"But every organization has its own rules. It's a necessity to make sure things run the way they're supposed to. You don't like it? Too bad! We all do things we don't like. At least that's what you told me."

"Guys, this isn't the time," Cameron said, belatedly trying to calm things down. Instead, House pointed at Cuddy's glaring face.

"Oh! Nice Linda Blair impression. Keep her away from pea soup. And crucifixes. Don't want to traumatize the kiddies out there with that scene," he added, turning to Cameron. Seeing her expression, he rolled his eyes and grabbed a folder. "I think I'll just go and see some of these so-called patients."

Cameron exhaled loudly before looking towards Cuddy. "You said you contacted the state health department? Turn them loose on the college."

"They already have a team heading to the university to find out who she's been in contact with. If they can't get the info, I'll let the CDC deal with the school," Cuddy said as she turned to her secretary. "Get me the Iowa State Police, then find out how many airports there are around Ames, Iowa. Let's see if we can catch her parents before they get on that plane."

"Anything they can tell us will help treat Jen."

Cuddy let out a derisive snort. "And get this quarantine lifted before I kill House."

Cameron stood silently as the hospital administrator stormed towards her office. "Remember to sell tickets," she called out.

* * *

Chase stood over the bed, carefully examining the stats displayed on the readout for any sign of change. Hearing someone entering the room, he shot a quick glance backwards, nodding as Foreman walked up. 

"How is she?"

"Not good," Chase answered softly. "The ice bath lowered her fever to under one-oh-five, but she's still in a coma. Her other stats are good, though. Heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure and EKG are normal. Whatever she has, it's not affecting her heart or lungs."

"Well, it's not meningitis or encephalitis. I got the results back on the spinal fluid. The protein level is a little high, but nothing that would be causing this type of trouble. At this point, I'd say the coma is a result of the fever."

"If that's the case, how long do you think it'll be before she comes out of it?"

Foreman shook his head. "I don't know. Depends on how severe the damage is. We don't know how long she was in a coma before anyone spotted her. Is the medication having any effect?"

"If it is, it's too early to know," he said, looking at the unconscious woman watchfully. The ice bath lowered her fever, but they'd have to wait to see if stayed down. Her nodes were still swelling, and that concerned him. "If it is the plague, it's probably too advanced to be treated."

"It's not the plague," Foreman insisted.

"You don't know that."

"And you don't know that it is. Come on. A lot of things cause these symptoms. Hell, we don't even know what all her symptoms are. The plague's rare."

Chase folded his arms as he leaned against the wall. "Rarer than getting bit by a rabid patient?"

Foreman raised an eyebrow, but a hint of a smile formed after a few seconds. "Okay, maybe not that rare. My money is still on TB."

"Betting on patients? You're getting more like House all the time," Cameron said as she walked in. "And that's not a good thing."

"Wait a second. You like House. Or you did. Something's changed," Chase said, moving to stand by her side. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened," she said with an eye roll. "I'm the first to admit House has _…_ issues. And Eric's picking up his bad habits."

"Gossip later. You don't think it's TB?" Foreman asked.

"Not with a clear chest X-ray," she said, hanging it from the light box.

"And it's not meningitis or encephalitis," Chase said. "Which leaves the plague as the most likely cause. How much were you betting?"

"Did you get the CBC back?" he asked, ignoring the last comment.

"Yes, but it's nonspecific. There's minimal leukocytosis, which confirms infection. You'd think with the way the nodes are draining, it would be higher."

"We need to show this to House. Infectious diseases are his specialty," Foreman said. "Where is he?"

"Treating patients," Cameron told him, smiling at the shocked look her colleagues exchanged.

"House? Tall, scruffy man with the limp and major attitude?"

"Yes, Eric."

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Chase asked. "I mean he's never pleasant even when he isn't in withdrawal."

"It's never a good idea for him to be around people," Foreman said, giving Cameron a warning look. "He's trouble."

* * *

House took the chart from the nurse and read over it as he approached the exam room. So far, he'd avoided any of the exceptionally annoying patients. He half-wondered if that was just chance or if Cuddy arranged it. "Arm pain," he said to himself. "She gave me the pulled muscle. Great." 

Entering the room, he noticed the well-dressed attorney walking the room restlessly as he barked directions into his cell phone. Seeing House, he held up his hand and shot out a last list of instructions before hanging up.

"Sorry about that. This case is important."

"Oh, I see. Nothing like my time," House said sarcastically as he pulled the stool over.

"Sorry, again. I didn't mean it that way."

"Of course not!"

"We've been working this case for months. The workers were suing for unpaid overtime that the owners didn't owe. I thought we finally worked out a compromise, but I need someone in the meeting with the judge."

"I can't tell you how exciting all that is, Mr. Rudd. Or do you prefer Esquire?"

Rudd sat on the exam table with a grunt. "Tony is fine. Nicotine withdrawal. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

House gave him a short look over the top of the folder. "Personally, I prefer not to kill the lining of my lungs, but I can imagine."

"It's not fun. You wouldn't happen to have a nicotine patch, would you?"

"I don't think so. I'll have a nurse check. Says here you've been having arm pain for the last three days."

"Yeah, it starts here," Rudd said, pointing to the top of his left arm and moving it toward the elbow, "and runs down to here."

Taking out his stethoscope quickly, House motioned his hand for Rudd to unbutton his shirt. After listening carefully for a few minutes, he pulled back and began moving Rudd's arm in different directions.

"Is there any chance you pulled a muscle playing tennis? Pushing the lawn mower? Burying incriminating evidence?"

"No, I have a secretary to do that for me," Rudd said in a stage whisper. "I don't do a lot of exercising. My schedule is too crowded."

"Right. Always some work to do. Which is the definition of a workaholic, if I'm not mistaken."

"I'm driven," Rudd said.

"With a high-stress job," House said, hobbling quickly to the door and calling for a nurse. On the way back, he stopped at the medicine cabinet. "Here. Stick that under your tongue. And here's some aspirin. Chew it. It'll help."

"I suppose it is. At least my clients don't die on me."

"No, but they do dream of killing you," House said with a wide-eyed look.

"Those are my opponents' clients. Or so I hope," he said with a chuckle. It quickly turned to a grimace. "God, this tastes terrible. I'll give you that: you don't have to worry about your patients wanting to kill you."

House didn't respond to that except with an innocent smile. Standing up, he moved behind Rudd and listened to his breathing as a nurse began sticking electrodes on his chest. "Have you been short of breath lately?"

"Not that I've noticed."

"Yeah. You don't exercise. Have you moved enough to get short of breath? No, lie down. Stay down. Good boy."

"I know. I need to exercise more and cut back on the smoking. I get that from my family doctor all the time. What's with the oxygen mask? Come on. Right now, I just want to know what's wrong with my arm."

"Humor me. It's not like you're going anywhere. This nurse is going to hook you up to an IV for some medication, and she's going run some tests. Don't keep her waiting while you're on the phone. I hear she knows all the best places to bury bodies in Jersey."

"I hear you, doc!"

"But you don't listen, do you?" House muttered after telling the nurse what blood tests to run and exiting the room. He was heading to the nurse's station when he heard the tapping of heels behind him. Thoughts of spinning around quickly with his cane held out passed through his mind, but Cuddy was beside him before he had time to act.

"Damn."

"What?" she asked in confusion.

"Oh, nothing. Where's my Vicodin?"

"On the other side of the quarantine. I thought we went over that already."

"You talked. I ignored."

Cuddy shook her head. "Why doesn't that surprise me? Don't answer that."

"I need my medication."

"No, you think you need it. We've been over this before, but I'm sure you ignored that as well. Since you're so good at ignoring, why don't you concentrate on not thinking about the pain? Ignore it."

House made a face at her. "That's counterproductive. To think about ignoring the pain means that you have to think about the pain. And that makes it hard to ignore. Is that too confusing for you?"

"You're hopeless," she sighed. "You seem to be surviving clinic duty."

"Besides having to deal with a patient that's killing himself, everything is just dandy! If you ignore the fact I'm trapped in here with you. There's an angry mob in the waiting area. And what the hell is going on?" he barked suddenly.

Cuddy turned around as the commotion started in the waiting area. A person in a blue biosafety suit carrying cleaning equipment entered the clinic from the hallway she'd set aside as a staging area. As the figure moved closer to the knocked over chairs where Jen Hopper had passed out, the crowd nervously backed away.

"Great timing. The water buffaloes were just settling down," House muttered angrily. "Nothing to worry about folks! He's here to clean up."

"Then why is he in that suit?"

House turned his head slowly, fixing his eyes on the surly teen that had started the earlier panic. After getting the unconscious woman out of the clinic, they'd blocked off the spot she passed out, but that had been unnecessary. The other patients had voluntarily avoided that section of chairs. While he knew it was necessary to disinfect the area, he also knew it wouldn't take much to start another stampede.

"Because it's the law," House said without hesitation. "All kinds of stupid laws about that sort of thing. Your tax dollars at work."

"You mean the government is going to cover up our deaths. They'll toss our bodies in a freezer somewhere, and then after everyone is dead, they'll start a fire in here, and tell everyone we died that way."

"Kid, I warned you about suturing your mouth shut. I will do it."

Cuddy yanked on his jacket sleeve and moved in front of him. "Shut up," she whispered at him.

"But I have a get-out-of-jail-free card," he whined, pulling out the attorney's card from his pocket. "Well, I think the lawyer will be alive for the trial."

"Mr. Rudd? The one you said had a pulled muscle."

"He does. Just not the one I expected. Look, the brat is scaring the herd. Just a few sutures. Please?"

As the crowd grew more nervous, she seemed to consider the idea, but gave her head a quick shake. "No!"

"You never let me have any fun!"

"Grow up," she murmured before facing the crowd. "Everyone, if I can have your attention, please. That gentleman in the suit is here to disinfect the area where the young woman passed out. It's nothing to worry about, and there are no government conspiracies."

"What about the aliens that took over Broadway?" the teen demanded. "Or the killer iguanas that wiped out that New Mexico trailer park? You try to hide that stuff, but those of us that know the truth know_…_ uh, the truth. Yeah."

Cuddy just blinked her eyes at him. Most of the crowd mimicked her motion, but House seemed to enjoy the spectacle. He rested against the station, and leaned over to Wilson when he joined him. "Did you bring any popcorn?"

"I didn't realize it was my turn. Is this entertainment?"

"Oh, this is great. I thought that kid was just annoying. And ignorant. Turns out he's a total nutcase. But he's distracting the crowd, so I'm not going to tell him to shut up as long as the spacesuit guy is here."

Wilson folded his arms as he listened to teen's explanation of how a cult controlled Hollywood through mind control. "I don't know. That one actually sounds believable. How else do you explain a remake of 'The Dukes of Hazzard'?"

House snorted disbelievingly. "Jessica Simpson in short shorts. Who needs an explanation?"

"Some people like a plot to go with their movies."

"Plots are overrated," he said as the three younger members of his team joined them. "Don't you have patients to treat?"

"Don't you?" Foreman countered. "Besides, we got some of the test results back."

House took the reports from their hands and spread them out on the nurse's station. "We should be doing this in an exam room."

"They're all in use. We're treating the virus patients in the waiting room," Wilson said, taking the X-ray and holding it up to a light. "Chest is clear."

"So's the spinal fluid," Chase said, watching as Cameron left to take a phone call. "I think we're dealing with the plague."

Shaking his head, House flipped rapidly through the pages. "Where's the stain from the node aspiration?"

"It's not done yet."

"Why? It doesn't take long. The lab does know this is a priority, don't they?"

Wilson shrugged. "It only takes a few minutes when you aren't working under quarantine. And you have a free lab tech to work on it. You don't think she has the plague?"

"Low probability, but it is possible. There are too many other diseases that present this way. My money is on the TB."

"Told you, Eric," Cameron said as she rejoined the group. "But the chest X-ray was clear."

"Which means she doesn't have pulmonary tuberculosis. There's skeletal TB to consider; it doesn't always affect lungs," House noted, screwing his face up in thought as he read through the other test results. "It's not syphilis or HIV. We don't have anything to compare the titers against for the rabbit fever, but that was never high on my list."

"That was the school. I left a message with the zoology department. Jen does work with their animals – reptiles," Cameron said.

"Salmonella is the most likely disease to get from a reptile," Wilson said. "And it doesn't leave you in a coma with draining lymph nodes. Of course, you can get parasites from scaly and slimy things."

"But they probably feed the rodents to the reptiles. That's still a possible vector," she added.

"You're both forgetting the obvious," House interrupted. "Whatever she has, she probably contracted it before she left for school. She's only been here two days. Very few diseases incubate that fast, let alone get to the point of coma."

"What about something from a farm animal?" Chase asked. "Or there could be rats and mice in the barns."

"Not _everyone_ in Iowa lives on a corn farm with Shirley Jones singing about surreys," House said.

"That's _Oklahoma_."

He turned to Wilson and raised his eyebrows. "Whatever! And do I want to know how you knew that?"

"My grandmother was very fond of musical theater. I had to go to at least one show every month with her when I was a kid."

"Sounds nice," Cameron said.

"I hated it. Grade school is not a good place for a boy to go around singing Broadway show tunes. I really had a reputation as a nerd."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's what all the other kids thought about you," Foreman said with a grin.

"There was no question in that regard," Wilson replied before addressing Cameron. "What about mono?"

"I don't think she's interested," House said lowly, turning to give his friend an icy stare. "You'll have to share your germs with someone else. Like your wife."

"No! Doesn't infectious mononucleosis present this way with immune disorders?"

The others turned to her, but she shook her head slowly. "I don't think that's what she has. Most of the time, mono in an immune compromised patient presents with a ruptured spleen. There's no indication she's having any trouble with it."

"Most of the time," Chase repeated. "What about the rest?"

"Patients with X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome do react to Epstein-Barr the way Jen has, but…"

"But," House said, dropping his head beside Chase's. "The 'X-linked' part means it only affects boys. So unless you really screwed up that initial exam, our patient doesn't have it."

"Now what?" Foreman asked.

"Chase, keep an eye on her. If the fever starts to go up again, get her back in the ice. Let's try to keep her brain from getting fried. How's the diabetic kid?"

"So far, he's not sick, and he knows you're using him as a guinea pig."

"Why did you tell him that? And he's a canary. That's much more hygienic sounding than pig."

"I didn't have to tell him. Adam knows he'll probably be the first person to get sick if it is contagious," Cameron said.

"Keep an eye on him. Foreman, go ahead and run tests for Epstein-Barr and parasites," House started to say, pausing when a yell came from the waiting area.

The crowd had been distracted by the teen's wild stories, but they'd kept an eye on the suited man disinfecting the area. When he moved to a new section, the crowd edged away from him. Eventually, they ended up heading towards an isolated corner. The corner wasn't empty though, and the lone woman who'd taken shelter there was now screaming.

"Great," House muttered as people began to panic again.

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**Victims of Circumstance**  
**Summary:** Quarantined in the clinic, House and his team try to find out what's wrong with a comatose young woman.  
**A/N: 1)** Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out. Real life and all of that. I promise the final chapter will be posted soon.  
**2)** I really did have my Snap, Crackle and Pop line planned before I saw "Humpty Dumpty".  
**3)** For non-Americans, Snap, Crackle and Pop are famous advertising mascots.  
**4)** As always, thanks to Niff for her assistance with the medical aspects of the story, and Marlou for her beta services. All mistakes are mine.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Just read the last one. Nothing has changed since then…

**

* * *

Chapter 3**

As the woman's screams ignited a fresh round of alarm in the crowd, House let out a growl. He recognized her; she was the one who had laughed at his Ponce De Leon joke earlier. Even then she'd kept away from everyone else. _The hypochondriac_, he thought; she would be terrified of catching everyone else's germs.

Reaching for the bottle of Vicodin in his pocket, he stared at it for a long moment. Only one pill remained, and there was no telling how long it would take to get a refill with the quarantine in effect. He remembered withdrawal, and it wasn't something he wanted to go through again; he needed to make this last.

Despite someone trying to calm the woman, her yells became more frantic. That fed the crowd, and several eyed the locked doors with calculating looks. The sick co-ed probably wasn't contagious. Probably – but they couldn't take that risk.

"Come on, get out of our way!" he barked, dry swallowing the last pill as he forced his way to the nervous woman. A group of nurses beat him there, and one looked over her shoulder to describe the symptoms. "She's having a panic attack. Get her two milligrams of Ativan and find someplace to stick her. Use the damned janitor's closet if you have to."

Leaving the nurses to calm her until the needed syringe came, he turned to the crowd. They were on edge, but still under control – a fact he knew wouldn't last if one person in particular stared up again. He spotted the surly teen and pointed to him. "You! Over here! Now," he barked angrily.

The boy inched his way over, his earlier bravado fading when faced with the full force of House's temper.

"If you start another panic, I will give you something to be terrified about. Do you understand me?"

"You don't scare me," the boy whined.

"Then you are dumber than you look," House said lowly as Cuddy pulled him away. "Give me five minutes with him."

"No. God, how pathetic are you? You want to rumble with a teenager?"

"I won't use chains, if that's what you're worried about," he muttered. Turning around, his jaw dropped as he saw nurses pulling carts in from the staging area. "You brought in food."

"Of course I did. We have a room full of sick patients, not to mention hungry infants and little children. We have to give them something."

"Where's my Vicodin?"

"You're sounding like a broken record," Cuddy huffed on the way to the desk. She only made it a few steps before House's cane slammed down in front of her. The noise shot through the enclosed space, causing heads to turn that way in concern. She cocked her head and whispered harshly at him. "Are you out of your mind?"

He glared in return, his temper threatening to boil over. He understood the need for quarantine, probably better than anyone else did. There were infectious diseases that moved with amazing speed. Everything leaving the clinic was double-bagged, and the outside bag disinfected before leaving the staging area. Anyone entering the clinic needed protective clothing.

But anything from the outside was safe to bring into the quarantined area.

"No, I'm out of my pain medicine. I thought we were clear on that! You could have sent it in with the guy that cleaned up. You could have brought it in with the food. I can't go up the pharmacy to get it. Why didn't you have any sent in? I need my pills! Just how stupid are you?"

Cuddy folded her arms slowly, staring him directly in the eye. "I don't care how big of a tantrum you throw – the real babies have priority. They needed food. You don't need drugs. I'm sorry you're an addict," she said quietly. "But that's not my concern right now."

Swearing angrily, House hobbled off in the direction of the restrooms. Wilson inched his way to Cuddy, holding a patient's chart almost like a shield. "We're going to have to do something with him. He's an addict, but that doesn't change the fact that he is in a hell of a lot of pain. When they tried to mob the door earlier they yanked his leg around."

"I know, and I feel badly for him. Honestly, I do. But he really isn't my priority right now," she sighed wearily. "On top of a clinic full of sick, panicky people, I have the board of directors wanting updates, the press found out and making it sound like this is a hot zone, and the state health department went to the wrong dorm to get information."

"What?"

"There're three Jen Hoppers at the college. They took the wrong one. They were talking to her dorm mates when she walked in. They're on their way to get the right one now."

"And these guys are supposed to be helping us?" Foreman mused as he joined them.

Cuddy made a disagreeable sound and shook her head. "At least the CDC checked her around her hometown. They verified that there have been no reported outbreaks of any type. If she caught whatever she has at home, then it's probably not too contagious."

"Or she's the first one to present," Wilson noted. "What about the parents?"

"The Iowa State Police contacted the local airports. When the Hoppers show up, they'll be told to call us immediately."

"Good. But that still leaves us with House. We have Demerol here, or we could hook him up to a morphine pump."

"No!" Foreman stated heatedly. "He's already addicted to Vicodin. The last thing you want to give a druggie is another addictive substance. It's adding fuel to the fire."

"Druggie? Come on. That's not fair."

"What's not fair is subjecting these patients to a drug addict."

"Stop it! If we're stuck here much longer, I'll have some Vicodin brought in with the dinner trays," Cuddy said, her tone leaving no doubt that the conversation was over. Rubbing her forehead, she watched House warily as a nurse handed him a chart. Even across the room, she saw the face he made on the way to an exam room. "I'm going to need Vicodin before this day is over," she muttered.

* * *

"Hey, Adam," Cameron said as she entered the young diabetic's room. "I see you're hogging all the doctors today." 

"I stopped by to bring him his lunch before someone else took it by mistake," Chase explained. "The kitchen staff made that special for you."

"This is special? Man, I'd hate to see what everyone else got stuck with," Adam said, cautiously poking at a cup of blob with his spoon.

"Sorry. The hospital food isn't that great," Cameron admitted with a smile.

"Great? Is this even food?"

"Adam, don't complain," his mother chided.

"Says the woman who isn't touching her food."

"It's not good, but be sure to eat something. We don't want your blood sugar dropping too low," Chase said kindly.

"Guess that won't balance it out from being too high," he said with mock-hope.

"I'm afraid not," Cameron said. "So, how are you feeling?"

"I don't think I have whatever made that lady pass out, if that's what you want to know."

The two doctors exchanged a knowing look. Adam understood his risk, but it didn't make it less stressful for anyone. "We got back some of your blood work. The CBC is normal, so you probably don't have an infection. So far, everything looks good."

"Was yesterday the first day that you noticed that your blood sugar was off?" Chase asked.

"Yeah, when I tested it last night."

"Did you start a new bottle of insulin yesterday? Or was it from a different source?"

"No. We get it from the same company. Adam used the last of that bottle yesterday," Ms. Richards said.

"Okay, so tell us what you ate yesterday."

"That can't be it. Adam knows he has to stick to his diet. He's very good about that," she insisted. "I know what you're thinking. All moms think their kids never do anything wrong, but he never trades his lunch for junk food, and we make him special snacks to eat when he gets hungry. We're all very careful about that."

"So you didn't cheat yesterday?" Chase asked, giving the mother a half-shrug.

"No," Adam said, dropping his head sheepishly. "Not really."

"What?"

"You were late picking me up yesterday 'cause of that flat tire. I was hungry, and I didn't have any snacks with me. But Aunt Kallie got the stuff from the health food store. It was sugar-free."

Ms. Richards let out a groan as she closed her eyes. "My sister-in-law is an idiot. She knows Adam can't eat junk food."

"It was a power bar," he protested.

"Do you remember the name of it, or what it looked like?" Cameron asked, writing down the brand and description of the package.

"But it was sugar-free."

"Well, it's possible there was something else in there that you shouldn't have eaten. I'll see if I can get an ingredient list for it. Don't worry. If that's what caused the trouble, you'll be fine. Just don't eat them again."

"Right. I'm sorry, Mom. Don't be angry."

"Don't worry. I'm not angry. With you."

"Go ahead and eat something," Cameron said, reaching into her pocket. Pulling out the Game Boy, she handed it to Adam. "There's something to keep you entertained until we can let you go home."

"Thanks!"

Chase followed her out of the room, his head tilted to the side as he examined her closely.

"How's Jen doing?" she asked him, unaware of his scrutiny.

"No change yet. I'm on my way to do another checkup. You stole House's Game Boy."

"I borrowed it."

"Does he know? If not, I'm pretty sure that counts as stealing."

"No, he doesn't know, but Cuddy confiscated it from him. It's not like he's going to miss it."

"You're stealing from him."

"There's no reason Adam can't play with it while he's stuck here. It'll help keep him relaxed. Poor guy. Did you read his chart? He's had a hard life, and he's just a kid. Can you imagine what it's like knowing that you're the one most likely to catch a mystery disease?"

"You stole from House," Chase insisted.

Cameron rolled her eyes before shooting him an annoyed glare. Seeing his expression, she blinked in confusion. "What?"

"What what?"

"What's with the look?"

"What look?"

"The look you're giving me," Cameron said irritably.

Chase looked away quickly, but took a deep breath before facing her again. "You were complaining about House earlier. You snapped at him. Now you're stealing from him. Something has happened. I knew it! He's not the catch you first thought?"

"What? Oh. Oh! I get it now."

"What do you mean?"

"You think you have a shot. A bit of advice," she said dramatically, pausing to give him a salacious grin. "You're not ready to handle his markers."

* * *

Limping heavily, House walked over to the examination table and reached through the assorted tubing and wires to yank the cell phone from his patient's hand. "He'll call you back later. Maybe," he snapped before ending the call. 

"Hey, doc! That was important. Do you know how long it takes to work out labor settlements?"

"No. Now ask me if I care."

Rudd shifted on the table, but his petulant look wasn't very convincing. "I got to tell you, doc, whatever you gave me really took the pain away."

"Morphine does that."

"Morphine?"

"We figured we'd break out the good stuff just for you."

"Isn't all this overboard?" the lawyer asked, motioning to the equipment hooked up to him.

House stared angrily at the ringing phone in his hand. Making a face, he answered it shortly. "No speaky ze English. Bye-bye. I'd give it back to you, but you'll just call them. Instead of doing something like resting."

"I get what you're trying to do. You want me to listen to my doctor's advice. I know I should, but you know what? I only care about my arm right now. What's wrong with it?"

"Your arm hurts because you had a heart attack."

Rudd stared at him incomprehensively. "What?"

"Heart attack," he repeated, enunciating slowly. "Only three syllables. I thought I was clear."

"I…huh?"

"Okay, let me put this in terms you can understand. Your heart went on strike. Luckily for you it settled on a strike and not a stroke, too."

"But, but … my chest never hurt."

House shrugged as he read over Rudd's stats. "Union labor. What do you expect?"

"But I'm too young to have a heart attack."

"No, you're not. Especially the way you've been treating your heart. The initial test results suggest it wasn't very severe. We'll move you to cardio as soon as we can. They'll do some more tests there."

"Oh, shit."

"Basically," House said, nodding his head in agreement.

"Guess I really need to quit smoking now."

"Among other things," House said, glaring at the ringing cell phone. "I'd strongly suggest a less stressful job, and find yourself a hobby."

"I always wanted to carve ducks," Rudd said in a soft voice.

"Just go easy on the l'orange sauce," House said on his way out of the room. He eyed Wilson suspiciously as he approached. "Do you have my test results back?"

"No."

"Then go away."

Wilson smiled as he moved beside House. "That's rude."

"So am I. Most people are quicker on the uptake than you are."

"For all you know, I just won the lottery, and I was going to offer to share it with you. Your rudeness cost you a million dollars."

"Oh, please. I know you don't waste money on lottery tickets. Your wife won't let you, will she?"

"I'll have you know that I have my own spending money. I'm allowed to spend it the way I want," he answered lightly.

"Then go give some of it to those lab techs. There's no reason not to have that stain done yet. We can rule out the plague that way. Get rid of the water buffalos before they start to stink the place up. The bathroom already looks like a toxic waste site."

"And that explains your lovely mood."

"No, this is my normal mood."

"Right. You always go after Cuddy with your cane."

"In my dreams. That counts for something, doesn't it?"

"Look," Wilson said, stopping and glancing around to make sure no one was listening. "You have a problem. I know it. You know it. You don't want to deal with it. That's your choice. Stupid, but it's your life. But you can't let it get out of control. Not in this situation."

"Stop your worrying. If you think I need help, go get me my Vicodin, or get on the lab to get my test results back. Once we know what we're dealing with, we can end this stupid quarantine."

* * *

Cameron approached the empty reception desk quietly, her eyebrow going up as she heard muttering coming from behind it. Leaning over, she spotted her quarry sitting on the floor, rapidly looking through the shelves. 

"I don't think they keep any Vicodin back there," she said teasingly.

House shot her an aggravated look. "I know Cuddy put my Game Boy in here somewhere. If one of the herd out there stole it …"

"They didn't," she said quickly, swallowing when he stared sharply. "I mean, you'd be able to see if someone in the waiting area was playing with it. Besides, there're still patients to treat."

"Cuddy won't let me."

"Why?"

"She doesn't trust me. She said the hospital can't deal with a lawsuit if I suture Motor Mouth's mouth shut."

"What about the other patients?"

"What about them?" he asked, wincing as he slowly stood up. He brushed away her hands when she moved to help him. "He's the only one I want to _treat_. Why aren't you seeing them?"

"Break. Here," she said, handing him a canned soda. "The machine is almost empty. I stockpiled some."

He eyed the proffered drink before grudgingly taking it. The Vicodin had finally kicked in, but it only masked the pain. And made him not really care about it. The jerking caused by the crowd aggravated his leg, and he knew he'd be paying for it later. Right now, he was more worried about the attractive package of personal annoyance in front of him.

"Are you okay?"

House made a noise in the back of his throat before taking a long drink from his soda. "No, I'm not. We went over this earlier."

"I'm worried."

"Right on schedule," he muttered under his breath. "You worry about everything."

"That's not true," she protested.

"Name one patient in here that you aren't concerned about."

"That's not the same."

"Of course it is," he said. "You think your role in life is to make everything right. I'm broken. We both know that, but unlike you, I don't care. I'm fine this way. I don't want you trying to pick up the pieces."

Cameron chewed her bottom lip for a minute, but she quickly moved to overtake him. "You don't want to be fixed, do you?"

"No! I like my cojones just the way they are," he said acerbically before eyeing her bawdily. "Now, if you just want to handle them, that can be arranged."

"What are you afraid of?"

House stopped short, darting his eyes to the side, but not looking at her directly. She was going to push. She cared, for some reason he couldn't understand. What did he have to do to convince her to move on with her life? "Koalas. They look like little teddy bears, but they'd rip you apart if they had a chance. And no fair asking Chase to get you one for Christmas."

"You're avoiding the issue. You're afraid to talk about it."

"Really? Did you ever consider that I just don't want to talk to you?"

"You weren't in withdrawal earlier. It takes longer than that," she stated, moving in front of him again. "You're afraid to face your addiction."

"Been there. Done that. I think we all agreed it wasn't a fun party."

"Then why don't you get treatment? You claim it doesn't affect your life, but you know that's a lie. It's clear to everyone that you need help."

"Gee, that makes me feel all warm inside."

"There are people that can help you," she said gently. "I'd help you."

"Save the psych one-oh-one lecture. It's annoying, and you're not very good at it," House growled, grabbing a folder from the nurse's station. "I have a patient to see."

Cameron shook her head sadly as he walked off. "Avoidance."

* * *

House dropped his shoulders in exasperation as soon as he walked into the exam room. The hypochondriac lay on the examination table, her eyes swollen from crying. Facing Cameron was better than this. He started to back out of the room, but she turned her head in his direction. 

"Are you my doctor?"

"Lucky me. Well, Ms. Vasnick, you picked the wrong day to come to the clinic. All kinds of sick people out there, spreading their germs around. How many of their symptoms did you pick up?"

"What are you talking about?"

"All those germs! They spread. And you get sick so easily, don't you? Always have something wrong with you. I bet you're certain that you picked up what everyone else has."

"I'm not a hypochondriac," she said, sitting up and reaching for her purse.

"No. You just avoided all those other sickies out there for the fun of it. You were right to scream at them and make that scene."

"No, that's not..."

"And you come in all the time – with symptoms that have no medical causes – because you love the ambiance of the waiting room. But you did get that Ativan."

"Shut up, you bastard," Vasnick yelled. She closed her eyes, clearly fighting to bring both her breathing and anger under control. "I am not a hypochondriac. I'm not here for drugs. I have my own."

House easily caught the prescription bottle tossed in his direction. Turning it around, he frowned. "Benzodiazepine. Pretty powerful stuff. And you're out of it. Couldn't get a refill from your doctor?"

"Do you know how to read?"

"The script is six months old. There weren't that many pills prescribed," he acknowledged, his curiosity piqued. "And it has a refill left on it."

"So I didn't come here for your drugs. I was going to get it refilled on the way home. I didn't know I was going to get stuck here. It wore off."

"I noticed," he answered dryly. Why did her doctor give her such a powerful, and potentially addictive, sedative? She clearly wasn't using them regularly. "You don't take much of this if the prescription lasted six months."

"I only take one before I go out," she whispered, wiping at her eyes embarrassedly. "It's so strong, but the selective serotonin stuff didn't work."

"Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors? Anti-anxiety medication."

"That's it. Now you know my secret. I'm agoraphobic," she said with a disgusted tone. "I'm a grown woman, run my own business, and I'm terrified to leave my home. It's so bad I can't leave without taking a sedative first."

His face scrunched up in confusion, he picked up her chart. "But you've come to the clinic several times in the past month."

"That's my point! Do you think I'd do that if I wasn't sick? I came in as soon as I got sick this time. I knew the symptoms wouldn't last that long. They never do. I worked up the nerve to leave the house, took my medicine and called a taxi."

His hand scratched at his beard absentmindedly as he read over his chart. Taking out a pen, House started listing the various symptoms she reported on the previous trips onto a sheet of paper. A pattern emerged soon. "Renal and respiratory. You said the symptoms never last long."

"No. They clear up in a day or two. Most of the time they're gone before I can force myself to come in. I know something's wrong. That's why I came in today. I didn't wait. I'm not lying. I am sick, and not just in my head."

"Huh. Lift your shirt," he directed. Moving behind her, House listened carefully for a moment.

"Where are you going?" she asked as he took the sheet of paper and headed for the door.

"You're a snap and pop short of a full breakfast."

* * *

Rolling her shoulders painfully, Cameron grabbed another reference book. She tensed when the sound of a cane clicking on the floor grew louder. As much as she wanted to help House she knew that wasn't why he was approaching. Why did things get worse every time she tried to assist him? 

He confused her; House had to be miserable, but he made no efforts to improve his life. It wasn't just the addiction. He had almost no friends, no life outside of work. What was he afraid of? Something kept him in his shell, and she doubted it was just his personality.

Stacy was able to draw him out, at least a little. Cameron's muscles tensed again. How had she been able to do it? Did she even care? House wasn't interested. He said so in no uncertain terms. And she didn't need someone to fix; she wasn't the damaged thing he thought she was. There were plenty of normal, nice men around.

She just needed to get over House.

"Reading reference books when there's a room full of patients? That's not a very fun way to play hooky."

Cameron ignored the barb, turning a page and scanning the page thoroughly.

"Is it just me, or did it get chilly in here?"

"Not that I noticed," she answered distractedly.

House made a face before cocking his head to scan the book. "What are you looking up?"

"I've been thinking about what Wilson said about mono. I don't think she has it, but he's right. Patients with immune disorders develop severe reactions to even mild diseases."

"And you're thinking Jen in there has an immune disorder. That must be fun – trying to figure out which one without a patient history."

"If we had enough doctors working the clinic, we'd have it."

"It's not my fault!" he groused before easing his way up on the counter beside her stack of books. She ignored him as she continued reading, at least until he picked up the book to read the title.

"Do you mind?"

"No. I like diagnostics. Let's see. If she can't have X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome, then she can't have X-linked agammaglobulinemia either. That is if you're sure she's really a she."

"She is."

"Okay. That's two down. How many are left? There're over one hundred autoimmune disorders alone."

Cameron pushed the hair out of her face and reached for another reference book. He was right; they didn't have enough information to diagnose an immune disorder, but it kept her focused. Or it would if he wasn't constantly interrupting her. She did care for him, but he wanted something. Knowing House, it was just an excuse to avoid a patient.

"Here," he said, sticking half of a candy bar under her nose. "But I'm keeping the laxatives. How hard do you think it would be to slip them to that bratty kid?"

"Why don't you do something productive?"

"This isn't?"

"Not really," she sighed, her impatience slipping through.

"Is this your first time dealing with an infectious disease?"

She looked up quickly with a perplexed expression. His voice was soft, but there was almost a challenging demeanor around him. "I'm an immunologist. I work with AIDS patients all the time."

"AIDS? Pftt. That's nothing. Unless you're unlucky enough to get it," he added rapidly at her incredulous glare. "But as far as infectious diseases goes, it's a lightweight."

"Do you know how many people have it?"

"HIV isn't easily transmitted. It requires an exchange of bodily fluids. The virus can't live long outside of the host body. You can't get it from a bug bite. You can't get it from a public restroom."

"Is there a point?"

"On the scale of infectious diseases, it's near the bottom in how contagious it is. It's a level two pathogen. The only things with a lower rating are diseases that don't infect humans. Level three things are nastier. And then you have level four contagions. Lassa, Marburg, Ebola. Now, those are contagious. With diseases like that, you have to wear a spacesuit just to look at a sample of the virus under a microscope, and then go through a decon shower when you're done. You have to worry if your waiter's neighbor sneezed on him a week ago. Or worry if you treated an unconscious woman in a waiting room without wearing any protective gear."

Cameron finally closed her book and leaned back to face him. "If you're trying to scare me, it's not going to work."

"That's good to know. And I wasn't trying to scare you. I've been trying to get your attention. I need you to see a patient."

"You can get your own patient histories."

"Is that what you think I want?"

"Did you get it?"

"No, but that's not the point. Listen to her chest," House said, sticking his sheet of paper in front of her face. "You'll like this."

Cameron started to protest, but House hobbled off quickly to the bathroom. Letting out a sigh, she glanced at the paper. After scanning over it for a moment, her head tilted in concentration. She was on her way to the exam room when a nurse called out to her.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hopper are on the phone for you."

"Thanks," she said, running over to take the call.

* * *

Walking into the room, Foreman frowned slightly as he watched Chase finish draining a badly swollen lymph node under Jen's right arm before taking a fresh syringe and draining one on her chest. 

"I don't think she can feel the pain from those in her state," he said.

"Maybe, but she doesn't need scars from them suppurating spontaneously," Chase explained. "And I'm waiting for the latest round of blood work to get back. Her fever's been fluctuating, but it's starting to creep up a little. She's not responding to the antibiotics."

"Well, it's not the plague. The lab finally got a stain that they could read. The bacteria aren't yersinia."

"Great. We ruled out one of the most likely causes of her condition, but we're not any closer to finding out what she has."

"There's no saying that we ever will. 'Fever of unknown origin' is a medical term for a reason," Foreman noted as he began his own checkup.

"I don't think that will go over well with the crowd out there. They're going to want to know why we locked them up."

"That's true."

"She has some sort of infection, that much is clear. The antibiotics should have done something."

"Hold on. Look at this," Foreman said, bending closer to exam the comatose woman's right eye. He stepped aside, allowing his colleague to view a small, red marring. "Conjunctivitis."

"Yes. That wasn't there earlier. Let me in," Chase said, carefully moving his gloved fingers around her right ear. "The preauricular nodes are swelling."

"A new symptom – Parinaud's oculoglandular syndrome. We need to find House."

_TBC_


	4. Chapter 4

**Victims of Circumstance   
Summary:** Quarantined in the clinic, House and his team try to find out what's wrong with a comatose young woman.   
**A/N:** Many thanks to Niff for her assistance with the medical aspects of the story, and to Marlou for her beta skills. All mistakes are mine and mine alone.**  
Rating:** PG-13**  
Disclaimer:** Just read the last one…

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 4 **

Sitting in the relative sanity of the locked bathroom stall, House rested his head on his cane and let the Vicodin work its magic. He'd taken it too soon; Cameron was right about that, but he was going to get the most out of it before it wore off. Who knew how long it would take to get a refill?

He wasn't a baby, no matter what Cuddy said. So what if he was addicted? That was a fact he readily admitted, but it didn't stop him from doing his job. Or change the reality that he needed the painkillers.

And she had the gall to say that she 'understood'. Cuddy didn't understand a damn thing; she couldn't. Pain wasn't the first thing she noticed when she woke up, or the thing that kept her awake at night. Only someone else in chronic pain understood the non-stop torment.

At least Cameron spared him the New Age, feel-good garbage. 'Pain is a constant companion.' That was crap. No companion was ever constant. They took breaks, went to the bathroom, eventually feel asleep. If they were annoying enough, he'd drive them away. When that didn't work, he just ignored them.

Not pain.

The damaged muscles were connected to the frayed nerves; the frayed nerves were connected to the brain. Every movement, every twitch caused them to send a bolt of hot, searing reality directly to his conscious. The pain was there every moment of every day, pushing other thoughts out of the way to make its presence know. It was a hotwired memento of what he'd lost, and a bitter reminder that it would never, ever go away.

His head came up when someone else entered the bathroom, but he made no move to leave. Never the most social of people, the constant exposure to the water buffaloes in the waiting room tried his limited patience. His portable TV was toast, and his Game Boy mysteriously vanished. He was stuck here for the duration, and it was a waste of his time, and totally unnecessary.

House made a face; that wasn't true. They still didn't know what they were working with. The staging area they set up should prevent the spread of whatever infected Jen Hopper from the rest of the hospital, even assuming it was a contagious disease. But mistakes happened, and with infectious diseases, they were usually fatal.

Despite common assumptions, hospitals were the last place you wanted to be in an outbreak. They were full of sick people whose weakened systems provided perfect breeding grounds for the disease to thrive. In Africa, Ebola outbreaks wiped out medical facilities with ease, spread by the staff despite precautions. Even here, a relatively mild virus had turned the maternity ward into a death trap.

"House!"

Letting out an impatient sigh, he debated ignoring Chase. Was five minutes alone too much to ask? "I'm a little busy at the moment."

"No, you're not," Foreman said, standing on the toilet in the adjacent stall and resting his arms on the wall.

House looked up with an incredulous glare. "Do you mind? Go pay for your fetishes like everyone else."

"Your pants weren't down," Foreman answered smoothly.

"Did you think that maybe a doctor wouldn't want his pants dragging on a bathroom floor? Not exactly sanitary," he snarled, rolling his eyes when Chase appeared over the other stall wall. "If he jumped off a cliff, would you? How about if I pushed him off? Please say 'yes'."

"It's not the plague," Chase said. "But she has a new symptom."

"What?" House asked, leaving the stall to wash his hands.

"Parinaud's oculoglandular syndrome."

"That's consistent with TB," Foreman added.

"If she had TB," House said, snatching the report and heading back into the clinic.

"I thought you thought she had TB," Chase said, sharing a confused look with Foreman as they trailed behind.

"No, I thought it was more likely than the plague. At least I did. The chest X-ray was clear. None of the tests showed any tubercular involvement on the skeleton or organs. There are no lesions. If it's advanced enough to leave her in a coma, there should be some other symptoms. Breathing irregularities, tachycardia, something. She's got nada."

"But the Parinaud's …" Foreman began.

"Is just a symptom, not a conclusion. It's also a sign of sexually transmitted diseases."

"The syphilis test came back negative."

"Retest."

"We already did," Chase reminded him. "She doesn't have syphilis."

"Just don't tell Cameron," House added in a stage whisper, looking innocently when she hurried over to join them. "She'll gloat."

Instead of gloating, she only shook her head slightly. "I just got off the phone with Jen's parents…"

He turned to her impatiently. "What other symptoms did she display?"

"She was tired, had some weight loss, pain, but …"

"Which are all consistent with TB," Foreman said, ignoring Cameron's irate look at being constantly interrupted.

"And that's not the most important thing," she snapped, stepping into the middle of the group. They turned to her expectantly, and she swallowed quickly. "About three weeks before school started, there was a flood in a nearby town. Jen volunteered to help."

"Flood? Why didn't you say so before?"

"You told me to tell you the symptoms!"

House made a half-dismissive grunt, leaning against the reception desk. "Floodwaters wash out all kind of crap, literally and figuratively. The diseases live in the stagnant water, waiting for someone with a little scratch to go by. They didn't mention any GI symptoms?"

"None."

"That eliminates cholera, typhoid fever or shigellosis, and those are the three flood biggies."

"Maybe she didn't tell her parents about it," Chase suggested. "I don't care how close you are to your family, diarrhea is embarrassing."

"If they didn't notice something like cholera, they were in a coma, too" Cameron said thoughtfully. "Hepatitis A and E both are common after floods. They sometimes lead to coma, but there's no sign of underlying liver failure."

"TB shows up, too," Foreman said, giving House a pointed look.

"If the flood was three months ago, I'd agree, but not in three weeks. It doesn't advance that quickly."

"Rats."

The others turned to Chase with curious looks. "Floods wash out rats. What about something like leptospirosis?"

"There should have been other symptoms, but test for it," House said, looking away and scratching his beard.

"What?" Cameron asked.

He bobbed his head from side to side, scrunching up his face in thought. After a beat, he shrugged and answered. "There's always dengue."

She blinked, and then frowned. "African hemorrhagic fever? In Iowa?"

"The main vector is mosquito bites. Mosquitoes _love_ floodwaters; they multiply like flying, biting bunny rabbits. And not the friendly type. The mean, disease-spreading kind."

"In Iowa?" she repeated.

"It shows up in the US every few years. People get infected in Africa, but don't break with it. They're carriers. When they get home, the local bugs spread it. Run the tests," he said to Chase and Foreman before turning to Cameron. "Did you see Wheezy yet?"

"No, the phone call came before I got to examine her."

"You spent all that time doing a history? You are playing hooky, aren't you?" he said in a mocking tone.

Cameron crossed her arms defensively. "There's nothing wrong with being thorough."

"There's thorough, and there's overly-thorough. Then there's you."

"The Hoppers didn't tell me about Jen volunteering for the flood. If I hadn't questioned them, we wouldn't know about it."

"Until she started oozing blood all over the place," he said, his joking demeanor fading quickly. "Has the kid shown any symptoms yet?"

"Adam? No, he's fine."

"If it is dengue – and no, it's probably not, but we have to rule it out – then it's not likely anyone else in the waiting room was infected. Which is good, 'cause nothing causes a panic like someone leaking blood from every orifice of their body. At least we know it's not the plague, and that's probably the most contagious of the diseases that fit her symptoms."

"If it's not the plague, will they lift the quarantine soon?"

"I'll go talk to Cuddy. See what it takes to get the red tape freaks to release the herd back into the wild," House said. "You take care of Vasnick."

Hobbling to the desk, he immediately noticed the nervous look the nurse directed his way. "Where's Cuddy?" he asked.

"She's seeing a patient, Dr. House."

His eyebrow shoot up as the woman kept anxiously darting her eyes to a patient folder tucked away from the others.

"I'm sorry, Dr. House. Dr. Cuddy specifically said you were not to see that," she said.

"Why not?"

"I, uh, I don't know."

"Right," he said, nodding his head. Turning around, he scanned the group of patients still waiting to be seen. His lips curled up slowly, and his mood improved slightly. Moving with a speed that startled the nurse, House shot out his arm and grabbed the folder. "Oh, Mr. Brinier! I'll see you now," he called out in a singsong voice.

* * *

"Hello, Adam, Ms. Richards," Chase said with a friendly tone as he entered the exam room. "Have you killed all the aliens yet?" 

"Hey, doc," he said, turning off the game and fidgeting on the table. "Can I go home yet?"

"Not right away. We ruled out the most contagious of the possible diseases, so we can probably let you all go as soon as we clear it with the health officials." He pulled the stool over next to the table, showing Adam a web page printout. "Was this the bar your aunt gave you?"

"Yeah. But it's sugar-free," he added, giving his mother a pleading look. "That's the only reason I ate it."

"Well, your aunt wasn't exactly right. It has no processed sugars, but it does have some honey and molasses in it."

"She's an idiot," Ms. Richards sighed, cursing under her breath. "I swear, I've told her a hundred times that sugar is sugar as far as a diabetic is concerned. Adam has to be careful of everything, even how much fruit he eats. She thinks if it says 'healthy' on the package anyone can eat it."

"If you want, I can talk to her," Chase offered. "She's not the only person who doesn't understand that even natural sugars can cause troubles for diabetics."

"Oh, you can tell her. She'll be easy to spot. She'll be the one with my hands locked around her neck."

"Mom!"

"It's all right," Chase said calmly. "You'll be fine, Adam. Do you know how to read nutritional information labels?"

"Yeah. I'm not a little kid."

"No, you're not. But from now on, I want you to check the labels yourself before you eat a new food, okay? Let's not have any more scares."

"Sorry," he muttered, dropping his head embarrassedly.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. Your aunt made a mistake, that's all. Here, go back to your game. I'll let you know when you can go home," Chase said.

"Thanks for all your help, doctor."

"I'm glad to help," he answered, turning to leave. It was true; after making no progress with the comatose young woman, it was a relief to be able to take care of a patient. After dropping off Adam's chart, he headed back to Jen's room, hoping to keep her alive until they found a treatment.

* * *

"We're going to die. Why don't you just admit it? You can't fool me," the surly teen – AKA Brandon Brinier – demanded. "And what are you looking for?" 

House opened another drawer, scowling as he shifted through the contents. With a disgusted sigh, he gave up and limped over to the exam table. So much for his fun. Now he had to actually treat the brat.

"What's your problem?" he asked shortly.

"I'm dying."

"Yeah, so what? We all are. Started the second we were born. Get over it."

Brinier sneered at him. "I don't like you."

Tilting his head to the side, House brought his hand up to his heart. "And I cannot tell you how much that underwhelms me. Why are you here?"

"My back hurts," he said, pointing in between his shoulder blades. "There. It's been getting worse for days."

"Take off your shirt. Oh, wow!"

"What?" the teen asked, House's excited tone instantly setting off mental alarms. "What's wrong with me?"

"It's a nonsuppurating staphylococcal furuncular pustule."

"Really? Is it bad?"

"Well, that's what you'd call it," House said, moving back to the drawers. "I'd just call it a boil."

"Is that it?"

House stared at the teen's back with a bewildered expression. Most people liked hearing their conditions were minor. "It is a pretty impressive one, I'll give you that. No wonder it hurts so much. But I can take care of that for you."

"Great. Thanks."

"Oh, don't mention it," House said, pulling out a scalpel and smiling happily. "It'll be my pleasure."

* * *

After completing her exam, Cuddy reviewed her mental checklist. All her meetings for the day still had to be rescheduled, and the hospital's insurance company wanted to know if they faced a potential lawsuit. Then there was the press, now camped outside the front of the building and coming up with more outlandish scenarios by the minute. 

She needed to call the board of directors in ten minutes to give them an update, but first she had to check on the progress of House's team. That meant dealing with the cranky doctor, and that was something she wanted to avoid for as long as possible.

The clinic staff was exhausted, but Cuddy didn't want to risk any more exposures; if the quarantine wasn't lifted soon, she'd have to arrange for some cots to be brought down, along with more diapers and formula for the infants in the waiting room. There was also food, water, medicines and House's damn Vicodin to arrange.

Wearily, she headed towards the phone when a painful yelp came from one of the exam rooms. She spun around, nearly colliding with Wilson.

"Don't worry. Cameron hid all the suture kits. House didn't sew the kid's mouth shut," he said, pausing in thought. "Unless he improvised something. Which is actually a possibility, now that I think about it."

"Why is he treating that boy? I said he wasn't to go near him."

"Do I need to answer that? Telling House not to do something is the best encouragement you can give him."

Cuddy let out a sigh. "So what was I supposed to do? Tell him to go treat the kid? This day can't get any worse."

"It can get better. Did you hear yet? It's not the plague," Wilson told her as they moved to the reception desk. "TB is still a possibility, but we've tested everyone. It'll be a few days before the reactions start."

"Good. I'll let the CDC know," she said, reading over the report. "I don't know if they'll accept the stain as proof. They may want to run their own tests."

"I already told the lab to e-mail them copies of the reports. And I need to see if they ever got my results back."

Cuddy leaned against the desk, ostensibly reviewing the lab report, but keeping an eye on the exam room door. When House emerged, she immediately stalked over to him.

"What are you doing?"

"Seeing a patient. Is there something wrong with that? You yelled at me earlier for not seeing them. You're so hard to please. Oh. Is that why you're still single?" he asked with mock-sympathy.

"I didn't want you treating the troublemaker. What about your hypochondriac?"

"Hypochondriac? Always so judgmental."

Cuddy glared at him. "I'm using your judgment."

"Well, my judgment says she can't be a hypochondriac."

"Why not?"

"She crackled."

"I beg your pardon," she said.

"Inspiratory crackles. Those funny sounds you hear when someone breathes in. You really did buy your med school exams, didn't you? Does the board of directors know about this?"

"Okay, so she has some respiratory congestion this time. That doesn't explain her earlier visits."

"She can't be a hypochondriac," he said patiently. "She's agoraphobic."

Cuddy did a double take. "So you're saying that one psychological condition prevents her from having another? And you think I faked my way through med school."

"Oh, I'm totally open to the idea that someone with one screw loose has a shaky chassis," House said, looking Cuddy up and down, and making a 'like you' gesture. "But not in this case."

"And why not?"

"Because agoraphobics want to be left alone. They don't want attention. Hypochondriacs crave it. If she has both, then she's totally screwed. Which is possible," he admitted, once again indicating Cuddy.

"She presented with vague symptoms with no underlying cause."

"No, she had symptoms that cleared up by the time she worked up the nerve to come to the clinic. Hmm. Let's see. Symptoms that clear up in a day or two, but keep coming back. That could be the sign of a hypochondriac, if you ignore the fact that our patient is terrified to leave her house."

"I have a ton of work. Can we get to the point? What is it?" she demanded shortly.

"It's also a sign that someone's immune system is going haywire. Call me crazy, but I thought an immunologist was the right person to treat her."

"You have to be kidding me."

"Ask Cameron yourself," he said, letting out a whistle and waving her over. "Well? Cuddy thinks she's a hypochondriac. I say it's an immune disorder. Maybe essential mixed cryoglobulinemia."

"No," Cameron said, shaking her head. "Her feet aren't blue or cold."

"Damn," he muttered, ignoring Cuddy's smug look.

"You should have done the patient history," she continued with an amused smile.

"Not this again."

"She makes jewelry. That exposes her to metal shavings and solvents on occasion. I think it's Goodpasture's Syndrome. I ordered the anti-GBM titers, but I may need a renal biopsy to be certain."

"So it is an immune disorder. I told you so," he said to Cuddy, sticking out his tongue when she threw up her arms and walked away. "Is it still in the early stages?"

"I think so. I need to run some more tests to verify the extent of damage to the lungs and kidneys, but it appears to be minimal."

"Goodpasture's," House said proudly. "That's almost never caught before it becomes severe."

"Next time do your own histories," Cameron said, shaking her head in disgust as she walked away.

"But I was right!"

* * *

"You came back," Vasnick said when House limped into the room. "I thought you bailed on me." 

"No, I sent in a specialist. And not a shrink. Figured you already had one of those."

"You believed me?"

"No, I believed your symptoms," he said bluntly. "People lie. Bodies don't."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Your blood work confirms that you have Goodpasture's Syndrome. It's an autoimmune disorder. That means your body's own defenses turned on itself. In your case, they targeted the lungs and kidneys. The disease causes destruction of cellular structures in those organs, and that makes them bleed. But it was minor. It cleared quickly. That's why nothing ever came back on your other tests."

"So, is this just an annoyance?" she asked doubtfully.

"No. Over time the bleeding will keep getting worse until it causes irreparable damage to the organs. But it's treatable."

"That's good news."

"You may not say that once you hear what it is."

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a great bedside manner," Vasnick said in an annoyed tone.

"Would you rather have someone nice or someone honest?"

"Is there any reason you can't be both?"

"Yes. I'm not a nice person," House stated. "We'll give you immunosuppressive drugs to rein in your immune system. We'll run some tests to check on the bleeding in the lungs and kidneys. If it's bad, we'll give you steroids to counteract that damage."

"Are these drugs dangerous?" she asked worriedly.

"All medications can cause side effects. You'll have to be careful about infections while on the immunosuppressive drugs."

"So, what's the problem?"

"The main treatment is a plasma exchange. Basically, we're going to take out your old blood and replace it with new. The trouble is we can't do that all at once. We'll take out three or four liters a day. Every day. For two weeks. And I don't think that's something we can arrange with Social Services to have done in your house."

Vasnick paled, looking away quickly.

"Do you need another sedative?"

"No," she choked out. "Can you check to see if it can be done at home?"

"Yeah, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. I'll have Dr. Cameron ask around and see what they can do about sedating you during the procedure."

"Will, will this cure me?"

"It should. The current thinking is that the disease is caused by an overreaction to an irritant. Something like the metal shavings and solvents you work with. It's possible that it'll come back if you're not careful. I'd advise that you install a ventilation system or use a respirator. If any of the symptoms reappear, you need to let us know immediately, and we'll start treatments again."

"Right."

"I'm not kidding. I don't care if leaving your home terrifies you. If you don't do this, it will kill you. Personally, I think that's a bit worse than being afraid."

Vasnick turned to him, watching him carefully. "Do you know what it's like to be that scared? Do you have any idea what it's like to live your life in constant fear?"

House looked uncomfortable, but didn't answer as he stood up. When his hand went for his empty bottle of Vicodin, he left the room as fast as he was able.

* * *

"Nothing," Foreman said as he walked up beside of Chase and Cameron, holding up a stack of pages. He automatically checked Jen's stats as he approached, shaking his head incomprehensively. "All the new tests came back negative." 

"The antibiotics still haven't had any effect. Her fever is still high, but otherwise she's in excellent health. Whatever she has, it still isn't causing any damage to the organs."

"Are we looking for the wrong thing? Is it possible she was stumbling from being ill and just hit her head? That would explain the coma," Cameron said, turning toward Foreman.

"There's no indication of any head injury. The disease is causing the coma."

"Did you show the test results to House?" Chase asked.

"He's seeing a patient. I left a message for him."

The trio continued to discuss possible diseases, making little progress before House joined them. He took the report, carefully reading all of the test results. When a cell phone started ringing, they looked around in confusion.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" House said to Cameron. Using his cane, he pointed to the bag of personal items under Jen's bed. "Do you expect the cripple to climb under there?"

"Hello," she said uncertainly. "I'm sorry, Jen can't come to the phone right now ... Trust me, she has a good reason ... This is Dr. Cameron at the Plainsboro Princeton Teaching Hospital … Yes, Jen is a patient here … I'm afraid I can't share patient information outside of the family. Can you tell me how she seemed at work? Did she mention feeling ill? … I see … Her parents are flying in now. Do you know anyone else who might have information? … Was she exposed to anything unusual at work? … No, thank you, Dr. Rambini."

"Is that a doctor as in a professor or a medical doctor?" Foreman asked. "Maybe she caught this from a patient."

"Not unless it wears a collar," Cameron said. "Dr. Rambini is a vet. Jen worked there during the semester, but today was her first scheduled day back. No one at the office has seen her since she got into town."

House's eyes suddenly snapped up, darting to the side before his head followed suit. "She works at a vet's office?"

"Yes," Cameron replied, confused by his curious expression.

"You said her schedule looked like she was a zoology major. Want to bet she's pre-vet?"

"It's possible," Chase said. "Is this relevant?"

"Well, duh. I'm not talking to you for the sparkling conversation. What exactly did Jen do when she volunteered at the flood?"

"Her parents didn't say," she answered.

House smirked proudly, all signs of tension draining from his posture. "So you're not as thorough as you think. Okay, take a guess. Pre-vet. Animal lover."

"You think she helped rescue stranded animals," Chase said. "So we're back to something from a barnyard animal. Like I suggested earlier."

House made a face, rolling his eyes. He opened his mouth, and started making loud, obnoxious sounds, halfway between gagging and hacking, his head bobbing forward in time with the noises.

The others stared at him in disbelief until Cameron recognized his hairball imitation. "Bartonella!"

"What?" Foreman exclaimed. "You think she has cat-scratch fever!"

"Of course!"

"But there's no scratches," Chase said. "Even after three weeks, there'd still be a lesion at the infection site."

"The name is a misnomer. You don't need a scratch to get cat-scratch fever. You don't even need the pussy," he said, ogling Cameron. "That's a whole other class of diseases."

She crossed her arms over her chest angrily, but it was Foreman who continued.

"Do you know how many people end up in a coma from cat-scratch fever?"

"Personally? Just Jen here, but we haven't been properly introduced."

"Less than ten percent of patients have a severe reaction to it. Only a fraction of those end up comatose."

"So?" House said with a shrug. "Somebody has to be the unlucky one. There are twenty thousand reported cases every year. That means a couple hundred get really sick from it. Jen is one of them."

"It would explain why the drugs aren't effective," Chase said slowly. "Most cases never respond to any medication. And it fits all of the symptoms."

"And the coma clears up on its own within four days," Cameron said. "She'll feel terrible for a while, but she'll completely recover."

"And you forgot the most important thing. We can get out of here," House added. "But Foreman doesn't believe me. He can run the tests himself. I'm going to go tell Cuddy the good news."

"Cat-scratch fever," Foreman muttered under his breath. "You know what's the worst part? He's probably right."

"And that's a problem?" Chase asked.

"He'll be rubbing it in our faces for a month."

"Nah," Cameron said with a relieved grin. "Just yours. We didn't disagree with him."

"Thanks, guys," he called as they walked out of the room. "Teamwork! Sticking together. Glad you understand the concept."

* * *

"Dr. House!" 

He turned, swearing slightly. The clinic patients were gone or transferred to rooms upstairs, and he wanted to make his own escape. It didn't take Cameron long to overtake him, and she held out his Game Boy. "I found this."

"Uh, huh. You mean you remembered to get it back from the diabetic kid."

"What makes you say that?" she asked nervously.

"Oh, please. I know you. I bet he's already on your Christmas card list. You probably knitted him special diabetic socks in between patients. Of course you gave him something to play with."

"If you believe that, why didn't you say something earlier?"

"Then you'd deny it, and you get this look on your face when you lie. Like you're constipated. Very unpleasant," he said with a shudder. Fresh Vicodin ran through his system, he had an emergency stash in his backpack, the quarantine was over, and he didn't mind teasing his annoying – and annoyingly attractive – associate.

"We're all going out to dinner to celebrate our release. Why don't you join us?"

"It's not much of a release if I'm forced to spend more time with the lot of you."

She smirked at him as he followed her back to the desk where she resumed writing notes in a folder. "You wouldn't be forced if you chose to do it."

"I choose to go home. And in case you didn't notice, the quarantine is lifted. Go eat, leave the paperwork, go home."

"I will later. Jen's parents will arrive in a few hours. I want to be here when they get here so I can explain what's going on to them."

"They do have other doctors here on staff. Go home. Relax. Go break out your collection of latex toys." When she turned to him with a horrified expression, House looked disappointed. "I guess that's one fantasy ruined."

"Eww … What … you … Wait a minute. You have fantasies about me?" she asked, smiling at the discovery.

"You're female. You're hot. That's all that's necessary for a fantasy," he answered evasively.

"There's one problem with realities," Cameron said in a husky voice. "They never match the reality."

House watched as she walked away, convinced she swung her hips in a slightly exaggerate fashion. He didn't care about that; he just enjoyed the view, tilting his head to follow her long, slow progress across the room.

"Hey, get your jacket. The gang's going out to dinner," Wilson said. He stopped talking when he noticed where House's attention was focused, letting out a low appreciative sigh.

"You're married. And I'm heading home."

"How can you stand it? Always being miserable. Turning down an obviously interested woman. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're misanthropic for the fun of it, but you never have fun. You can be a real prick."

"Oh, it's hard, but I think I can handle it," House said with a bawdy grin. Once Cameron disappeared from view, he headed towards the exit.

"You can join us. A group dinner doesn't involve a life-time commitment," Wilson said in a kind voice. "You don't have to be alone."

"I'm never alone," House countered, his free hand sliding into his coat pocket. It wrapped around the pill bottle, and he winced as he walked over the rough concrete. "I'll never be alone."

**The End**


End file.
